Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Wednesday August 1, 2012Ex-director sues Silver Bird
PETALING JAYA: Silver Bird Group Bhd has been served a writ of summons by former executive director Ching Siew Cheong via the Kuala Lumpur High Court. Ching was suspended on April 30 after the company’s AGM.

He was suspended together with managing director Datuk Jackson Tan Han Kook and general manager of accounts and finance Lai Poh Mai to facilitate an internal investigation of accounting irregularities in the company.

Ching is claiming loss of salary amounting to RM90,000 from the date of termination, along with RM600,000 in damages for wrongful termination of employment. He is also claiming RM2mil in losses, which resulted from force-selling Silver Bird shares as a result of what he claimed was mismanagement on the board’s part and the company going into PN17 status.

However, the company said in a filing to Bursa Malaysia that the claims were frivolous and not substantiated in the circumstances surrounding the financial irregularities. Silver Bird’s board said this would not have any financial or operational impact as such claims were envisaged to be restructured pursuant to the pending regularisation plan.

News of the bread and confectionary maker’s financial irregularities came about in February after its independent auditors Crowe Horwath refused to provide a basis for an audit opinion to the group’s financial report for the financial year ended Oct 31, 2012.

The auditors said their stand was based on the poor keeping and inability to verify sales transactions. Since then the company had defaulted on loans to both creditors and banks. Silver Bird’s distribution agreement for prepaid cards with Maxis Bhd, which was one the company’s main sources of revenue, was terminated.

The board formed an inquiry committee, and PKF Advisory Sdn Bhd was appointed to conduct a forensic investigation of the company. The results of the forensic investigation detailed 12 key areas of financial irregularities in the group.